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If you like it gives us a ring about it

New Year's Day is the day for getting engaged. And lets be honest. For most men the next best thing about getting married is getting to choose the wedding cars.

For a man getting married the best thing to do is stay out of the way. Bag the tasks you feel you can do and leave the rest alone. Offer a demurring 'of course' when prompted and 'you/it looks lovely' will be enough to keep things ticking along nicely.

With all the peripherals about where, when, who and what out of the way you can concentrate on the main task of 'how' - how to get to the church. This is a time-consuming, critical and of course self-sacrificing task of the highest importance. Getting it right is, of course, vital as everyone - particularly your mates - will remember what cars you had for the rest of their lives. Long after the stuff about dresses and flowers and vows have faded into the recesses of memory.

The first task of any self respecting groom is to list all the cars they've ever wanted to drive or be in and then list exactly why they are the best practical proposition for everyone concerned. This saves a lot of time later when silly arguments about 'not enough space' and 'what about my hair' arise.

Then the responsible groom gets on the internet and searches for his, sorry their, ideal wedding car. This, of course, should be a simple task - lots of people get married so there will be lots of choice. And, of course, there isn't. Well, not easily found.

If your ideal wedding car is an old white Rolls or a retro kit car saloon then frankly, stop reading here because you, my friend, are well sorted. If you like something a little more quirky or stylish then plenty of folk will rent you their VW Beetles or Cadillac Eldorados. You can even have a tractor or a Routemaster bus. You can probably, with quite a lot of work, eventually get exactly what you want. But perhaps not how you want.

The trouble with all of these options is that there is someone driving them for you. This of course is traditional but it is not, I think, much fun. For two reasons. Firstly and obviously, any self respecting groom wants to drive. What is the point of spending hundreds of pounds to be in a car when you want to be driving it?

Secondly, and perhaps less selfishly, who wants to spend the first minutes of married life in a car with a complete stranger? The trip from the church to the venue is the only time during your wedding day that you'll be alone withyour bride - it's a brief time to make the most of. And that means alone.

Fortunately help is at hand to solve all of these problems in the shape of self drive classic car hire. Specifically Great Escape Cars of course because I can vouch for no other. There are a lot of reasons why self drive wedding cars work better than chauffeur hire and not only because they enable you to drive, thereby ditching the awkward 3rd person in your chosen lovemobile. Self drive wedding cars are generally cheaper and better value than chauffeur hire - for less than the price of 3-4 hours chauffeur hire you get 24 hrs use. You can choose to drive or nominate someone from the wedding party.

You also generally get a much more interesting range of cars to choose from. It is a simple fact that the most interesting and desirable cars often have only two seats. With the gooseberry chauffeur dispensed with these cars are now available to you - everything from E Types to Cobras. At Great Escape we have over 60 hire cars available, ranging from classic Minis to Jaguar E Types and not a white Roller in sight.

The only hurdle to self drive wedding cars can be the logistics. Most hire companies offer rigid 24 hr hire periods and strict pick up times. You also generally need to collect and return the car. At Great Escape we do 't work that way. We realise that wedding logistics and planning are tough so we make hiring our cars as easy as possible. That means flexible collection and return times, a delivery and collection service and multiple collection locations so that we generally have cars near to you. We also offer a 1.5 day hire package for weddings - so you can collect on the day before and return on the day after the wedding without incurring the full 48 hr cost.

Our wedding hire packages include insurance and either generous mileage or unlimited mileage allowances. Prices start at just £95. To find out more call 01527 893733 or visit http://www.greatescapecars.co.uk.

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When I set up Great Escape Cars it was all about a classic car version of conventional car hire. So in place of a Ford Mondeo for 24 hr periods you got a Jaguar E Type or Jensen Interceptor. Lots of companies started doing this. And for many years it seemed to work.

Except, quite frankly, it didn't. There are now far fewer companies offering classic car hire and, as my hairline attests, there is one simple reason. It is hard and stressful. Most customers rent a classic car to celebrate a special birthday, a wedding or an anniversary. And, most of the time, they have a great time. But some of the time they don't because however well you maintain a classic car and however much money you spend on them, they are old cars with old car woes. And most of these old cars were never much cop when they were new.

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